The horrors of potty training and how to survive it

There is not a week that goes by that I do not thank some kind of deity for the fact that my kids are long out of the potty training phase. Well, my sister has a child who has just started potty training and I started having flashbacks! I thought today I would share how I survived the horrors of potty training by giving you guys some tips that will help.

Before we start, you will get poop on you and you will get pee on you. That is just the way that potty training goes.

Invest In Baby Wipes

You also want baby wipes to be in easy reach of your child so when they are using the potty they do not have to go on a quest around the house looking for them…… that is a recipe for disaster!

You know you are a parent when your weekly shopping trip results in you purchasing 8 or more packs of baby wipes. You simply must have more baby wipes that you need and you need to have baby wipes in multiple rooms in the house. First of all, they have to be in the room where you have the potty, that should go without saying! I swear to you that baby wipes have saved my butt (and wiped my kids) on more occasions than I can count.

Live The Dream And Have Multiple Potties

When we first started potty training we had one potty. We had to take it up and down the stairs all the time. Save yourself the hassle and have a potty on each floor of your house. We only have a house that is two floors so we had one in the bathroom downstairs and also one in the hallway upstairs. This way your child does not have to run up or down the stairs when they need to go. Kids when they are just learning, tend to leave going until the very last second. Having a potty that is close by makes the chance of an accident much less.

Keep Calm, Mistakes Happen

Your child is going to take a while to get the hang of using the potty so do not get all stressed out if it takes a while. We started my eldest son potty training before he was ready and it was a big mistake. We waited a couple of months, he was ready and it was a much easier experience for us all. The point is it can be very frustrating when you have to give them a clean pair of pants multiple times per day, but getting all stressed out is not going to help.

Wash them off, ask them to try and go quicker next time and move on. I know I make jokes about how horrible this is, but I would never have done this in front of my kids. You do not want to make using the potty a bigger deal than it is.

Every Kid Has A Price

Some parents may be above bribery…… I am not. My youngest son had some real trouble using the potty and I was sure a huge part of it was laziness! So I broke down and created a potty chart. Each time he used the potty he would get a star. What made him get on board with this was the fact that when he got (I think it was 20) stars he would get a surprise. In case you were wondering it was a Pokémon plush toy that he wanted.

This made him get super focused about his pooping and he never had another accident again. Some might say that bribing a kid is wrong, but I can tell you first hand that this can be what makes it click for them and get used to knowing they have to go to the potty as soon as they need, not hold off until the point of no return.

So there you have it. Potty training can be brutal and I have cleaned up my fair share of messes, but it does pass. The best bits of advice I can give you are first of all have more than enough baby wipes and to also make sure you keep calm and when an accident does happen, you clean it up and move on.